Fossils
1.
Once, on a small hill-top
that stood out like a bruised thumb
on the flat palm of the Darling Downs,
I found my one and only treasure.
The fossil of a leaf. Its diamond shape
impregnated like Manson's swastika
into the forehead of a silurian rock.
Its veins collapsed into thin coal.2.
I carried the fossil for weeks
wrapped in my jumper like an injured bird.
My science teacher though, doubted
the validity of my find. Said it was
nothing more than cement with scratches
& heaved it out the classroom
like a common house brick.
My faith shattered like a louvre.3.
My step-father, a rock collector himself
tells me that once he & his brother in law
ploughed up a fossilised tree some 30 feet long
& not knowing what to do with it,
they dug a hole in the paddock &
dumped it like radioactive waste.
My jawbone unhinged
like a thylacine's.4.
At the museum my daughter digs
in the sandpit searching for her own fossil.
Unearths a piece of a 200 million year old ammonite.
Curls her fist around it like a Jurassic lollipop.
On the footpath outside she points to the imprint
of a leaf etched into the new cement by mistake
& asks, 'Is this a fossil too Daddy?'
'Absolutely', I replied, shading her
from the sun, my petrified trunk
rooted to eternity.
